Posted
by
Zonkon Friday November 10, 2006 @04:22PM
from the infinity-bad dept.

munchola writes "The Software Freedom Law Center has declared that Microsoft's patent pledge to open source developers is 'worse than useless'. SFLC chief technology officer, Bradley Kuhn, has written to FOSS developers warning them that 'developers are no safer from Microsoft patents now than they were before'. According to Kuhn: 'The patent covenant only applies to software that you develop at home and keep for yourself; the promises don't extend to others when you distribute. You cannot pass the rights to your downstream recipients, even to the maintainers of larger projects on which your contribution is built.'"

The point is, open source people _aren't_ hippies. They've been running successful businesses for years now. But microsoft wants them to be hippies, wants the world to believe them to be - and now, is trying to make them be, using software patent monopolies to shut down open source businesses. The message is "if you're a hippie hobbyist coder, we won't sue you. But dare to build a business, and we will". Remember, patent and copyright monopolies DESTROY free market capitalism. Microsoft, like most large software corporations, are absolutely terrified of a true free market in software.

"hippy and communist" are just wrong when applied to free software folk: "Raging gun-nut libertarian" is far more accurate. Microsoft are playing with fire.

Against non-commercial coders. Which is the point - they're using the market-distorting power of patents to eliminate the more efficient competition from the COMMERCIAL open-source coders that have been mopping the floor with closed source lame ducks lately.

On the other hand, VA Software (the owner of Slashdot) has said publically that they will aggressively prosecute people who violate their patents.

I tried to give some code to Novell once. I found a small bug in a Suse program (it was one Suse had written themselves, not a 3rd-party product they were including in their distribution) and I sent them a patch.

I got back an email saying they wouldn't give me any support unless I proved that I'd paid for their product. I tried telling them that I was trying to support them, but to no avail: all my emails just got returned with the same message. I pretty soon gave up.

Unlikely. Without Windows being around, there would likely be a much better proprietary OS in dominance, and a lot more competition in the commercial OS market. So, Linux wouldn't have had as great a chance to get a foothold, without the dominant OS being so crappy.

I doubt anyone here is actually surprised by this. Since when has Microsoft ever done anything truly for the good of OSS?

The have done something that accedentally ended up good for OSS. If they had become a Hardware/Software company such as Amiga or Apple, Linux could never have had a standardized processor to evolve on.

Ya know, believe it or not, the "we're just out to make money" mentality, is not one shared by all businesses in all countries of the world. There are many countries in which a business's first priority is to their employees, then their community, and only thirdly to themselves (many businesses in Japan, for instance). Unfortunately, American's have convinced themselves that the only way to survive in the business world is to forsake all ethicality... and so they've made that true. It's very sad.

Because we all know how Microsoft treats those it writes contracts with... I seriously have to wonder why Novel thought that was a good idea. Are they so lacking in cash that they felt it was worth dealing with Bill G.?

Seriously...if, as CEO of a major company, Microsoft were to offer me $400 million...I would take it. If I didn't my shareholders would lynch me.The long term consequences don't matter here... all that matters is that for the next couple of years, profits go upWelcome to corporation-thinkThis has nothing to do with feel-good, Microsoft is teh EVIL, I hug bunnies world.A corporation exists to make money for its ownersperiodtoo bad about SuSE Linux... it will be seen as a victim of collateral damage

Agreed. But there is a difference between short-term money and long-term money.One doesn't guarantee the other, and it takes a good CEO to tell the difference.It also takes intelligent shareholders to avoid lynching him in the meantime.I think in a lot of cases, bad business decisions can be attributed to shareholders will very short-term vision.

This is why I'm a fan of businesses going private, which, thankfully, seems to be an increasing trend these days. Even ClearChannel (Oooh, they are Teh Evil!) is trying to find buyers in order to go private. I can understand the stock market being good for some things, but in some ways, it's been the worst thing to happen to the free market ecconomy... it encourages all investments to be made for short term gains, and forsakes long term planning. Many companies have lost their way after going public. I'm re

This is some amazing shit. No one has any idea what the ramifications, if ANY are going to be from this deal and everyone is so quick to run and lynch a company who has dedicated millions of lines of code to open source projects that they make zero dollars from. This is the same Novell who along with IBM took a stand AGAINST SCO and cost those bastards millions in legal fees. This is the same Novell who is activly sueing M$ for patent violations in the MSOffice product. Shane, how many lines of code have you contributed to any open source projects? What have you done for the community that can come close to comparing to even a little of what Novell has done for Linux in the last few years. Is it really so boring up there in New York that you have nothing better to do other than sit around and stew about some shit that none of us will probably ever even be affected by? All of you armchair lawyers need to STFU and wait until something bad actually happens to the community before you start trying to crucify a fairly benevolent company, relatively speaking, who dedicates themselves daily to the Linux community. WHEN/IF something like that does happen I will be more than happy to join in the ripping of Novell's spine from their body and showing it to them, but until then can we please move on?

On the other hand, most positive contributions can be ascribed to the previous management. Hovsepian, the guy behind the deal, is the CEO now. The current 'Novell' may not at all be the same as the last one.

And with Novells long, proprietary, history it has quite some legacy to overcome.

No, but a company doesn't need to screw everyone in sight to make money.There's only very few companies that can do that and get away with it, and Novell is not even close to being big enough to be one of them.

They didn't manage to survive as long as they have by pissing off their customers.

There is no proper usage of the itsatrap tag. Just as there is no proper usage of the yes, no, fud, and !fud tags. They don't describe the story content, but rather serve as a summary of the all the Slashdot comments -- a waste of the advantages of the tagging system.

Yeah, well, if there was any real intent of having the tags be descriptive of the story content they would support more than one word tags. When you are restricted to one word it is hard to place anything useful other than a minor comment such as 'FUD' or "itsatrap'. Somehow I doubt anyone is ever going to search the tags for 'awellthoughtoutarticalonmicrosoftspatentpledge'.

I disagree. I enjoy reading tags that don't really help categorize the article because it's kind of like looking into the general/. consensus of the issue without diving into the comments, and they're occasionally funny as well.

Besides, it's not like the "yes" tag could ever be used to categorize an article, so it's not really "wasting" any of the tagging system's potential, if you search for, say, "Halo" articles, the "no" tag applied to "Was Halo 2 Great?" isn't going to stop it from showing up in your

From a cynic's point of view, "itsatrap" is proper for more situations than you might think. Any story even somewhat related to a government action, social program, corporation's product, or "press release" by anyone could get the "itsatrap" tag. That covers a lot of stories.

Snow White a lesbian? You, sir, have just brought my fantasies with her and the delectable Miss Piggy to life! I knew reading about Linux had a benefit, but I just hadn't found it. In my dreams, I will be saluting you.

Note, this article is not talking about the deal with Novell as almost every post thus far has assumed. It mentions that deal, as something still being researched. This is about MS's recent promise/contract to not sue hobbyists for patent violations.

Note, this article is not talking about the deal with Novell as almost every post thus far has assumed. It mentions that deal, as something still being researched. This is about MS's recent promise/contract to not sue hobbyists for patent violations.

Who cares, we are all way to busy bashing MS and Novell to stop and read properly. Geez, next thing you know you'll be asking us to think before we post...

This is getting worse than Zune news. No one writing about this knows any more of the details than what was released to the press.

I know it is not normal to RTFA, but if you did you'd see it was a press release about the license MS released with regard to their promise not to sue open source hobbyists over patent violations. It is not about the Novell deal, despite the fact that every comment thus far (except my previous one) seems to be assuming otherwise. So people do know more than was published in the press release, just not about what you seem to have thought this article was about.

In this case, R(ing)TFA may have been a mistake, as I can see where you could get your misunderstanding from it. If you go to the source [softwarefreedom.org], though, you'll see this is part of the Novell deal. The actual letter starts:

Last Thursday, Novell and Microsoft announced a new collaborative effort involving both licensing and technology. The Software Freedom Law Center has been following the situation, and as its CTO, I've held a particular interest in how it will impact Free Software developers. One result of the

See, if they dedicate the patent then they can't sue ANYONE over it. That's not very Microsoft-like. Pass up on the peanuts (hobbyists), and sue the cash cows (like the hobbyists that manage to make a successful product and make money).
Besides, the next few years will either make or break Microsoft. They'd be fools not to know that. If things go rocky, they'll do what all the other failed tech companies do: fire off their developers, hire lawyers, and just squat on their patents. If they dedicate the

Novell here is stepping outside the line of fire and agreeing with Microsoft that *end users* are the ones that you must go after in any patent infringement dispute. Shades of SCOsource. Thanks for nothing, Novell. More questions: When were Novell SUSE customers asked if they wished Novell to negotiate a agreement with Microsoft on their behalf? When were Novell SUSE customers asked about the terms of said agreement? What consideration does Microsoft get from Novell's customers? Does negotiating this agreement on Novell's customers' behalf indicate that Novell assumed Power of Attorney for their customers in this matter? Did Novell truly represent the best interest of their customers using Power of Attorney? Can Novell legally assume Power of Attorney for their customers without a written grant? Do Novell customers have the ability to "opt-out" of this agreement? Is this agreement binding on customers?

Microsoft has used this patent pledge to indicate that, in their view, the only good Free Software developer is an isolated, uncompensated, unimportant Free Software developer.

Obviously. Especially if said developer is just writing stuff for use on his own machine. Utilities & apps that don't make it into the wild are no threat, and thus, unimportant from a cash flow point of view, and won't be sued. People only sue when there are monetary & tactical advantages to sue. If there's no money invo

I found that this blog [technet.com] was kind of interesting in the sense that it clears up a bunch of things that people are worried about.
However, I think that at the same time, there are a lot of people going 'where the heck is the PROOF of the patients!?'
I'd like to have SM give some of the patients that they claim are being infringed upon and then I might be willing to loosen up on the whole idea. At the same time however, I think that there is something that people have to realize, and that is, like it or not, t

there is going to be some changes in Novell, and I know that people are going to think that that would then mean that they are in Microsoft's pocket

Yeah. Once upon a time people said the same about Macs though, in the pre-OSX days... It took a while, but look at what Apple did after that. I'm not a Mac user myself, but from the little I know, it looks like they did pretty well. Maybe thats what will happen here too.

here's some other information on MS patents http://www.s5h.net/linux_news_reader_article_5505. html [s5h.net]. MS seem to be getting patents in huge swarms right now. it's quite sickening.
i think there should be new ammendments to prevent ms from applying for more patents. they are taking the piss, literally.

I, too, have been reading through the pledges at the Microsoft website, to figure out the exact wording and implications.

The "Microsoft's Patent Pledge for Non-Compensated Developers" is indeed rather useless, because it only covers creation and local use, and specifically excludes distribution.

The "Microsoft's Patent Pledge for Individual Contributors to openSUSE.org" is also not interesting,
since it covers the transfer of code from an author to SUSE, and only that and nothing else.

The "Microsoft's Patent Pledge for Hobbyist Contributors" is referenced from the above one. This should be the one that is covering the community distribution part. But is missing on the Microsoft website: Either it doesn't exist at all and the reference is a mistake, or there is a reason why it was left out from the web.

"The "Microsoft's Patent Pledge for Non-Compensated Developers" is indeed rather useless, because it only covers creation and local use, and specifically excludes distribution."

True. Even worse, they're pledging not to do something that they can't do anyway! The grant of the patent was done in exchange for teaching me how to implement and use the invention. They cannot prevent me from learning it, they can only prevent me from using the knowledge in a manner that infringes on their granted rights.

This seems rather much ado about nothing, from my uneducated glances over the wording.

Basically, this agreement is saying that Microsoft won't wield patents against those contributing software to OpenSuSE until after the Microsoft-Novell deal runs out or you try to wield patents against MS themselves.

But, really, what was the situation before? Either you wrote software that DIDN'T violate MS patents, or you DID and just hoped like hell that they wouldn't use their patents to sue you. There is a false s

According to Kuhn: 'The patent covenant only applies to software that you develop at home and keep for yourself; the promises don't extend to others when you distribute.

You know, I can build anything damn thing I want to with my Craftsman tool set and sell it. Sears has never had to promise that they won't sue me. I can even build, sell, and distribute competing products as long as its done under a different brand name.

Microsoft seems to be forgetting all those nice shareware programs built for Windows th

Why now, at this point in time are Linux developers being threatened in this way? Why not last year? Why not two, five years ago?

I reckon they are terrified about Vista... They're terrified it'll be a dead loss with millions jumping ship to Linux. They're trying to fence of Linux from their ex-customers in advance of it's release.

I know MS lawyers have claimed that Microsoft has never sued someone over Patent infringement unless it was a counter suit. In other words, I believe it is MS policy to use patents as a defense. The only reason they even need to use it as a defense is they are a huge target due to their large bank accounts. This is not to say they don't license patents if someone wishes to license them, and it's not to say their policy will never change. In fact Bill Gates however has spoken out for patent reform to red

The point is that whether it has ever been successfully prosecuted or not is unimportant. Technically, you can be sued for infringing patents even if you never distribute the infringing item(s).

From Wikipedia: "In United States law, an infringement may occur where the defendant has made, used, sold, offered to sell, or imported an infringing invention or its equivalent." Making and/or using an infringing product is infringement. It may be unlikely that you will ever be sued for it (since it is so unli

I'm still not sure why people are scared about this Novell/M$ deal. I'm a nub to the Linux (SuSe) community and I'm excited about this deal. A lot of end users like M$ products and this will make it easier for IT to give them what they want from a Linux back end. If M$ then sues said IT for using compatibality software to allow MS/Linux integration, said IT will then just return to previously used Open Source solutions/applications. M$ would be shooting theselves in the foot by said lawsuit and only cau

What makes you think that Microsoft is going to only go after people who use Microsoft software for part of their business?People who've never used Microsoft software, referred to it, or looked at it are just as likely to be sued for patent infringement as those who do - that's part of what's wrong with software patents. Given that, is there any reason why Linux users in general shouldn't be scared? If they don't use SuSE, then Microsoft has started lifting the barriers (i.e. antitrust) to being able to sue

It seems to me that what their "pledge" is saying is that if I develop any software on a Novell system and distribute it (by giving it away or selling it), Microsoft will prosecute me. My only defense is to make sure that I haven't had access to any Microsoft stuff. So obviously I should just refuse to develop anything on a Novell system. I should just stick to systems for which the OS and libraries are all GPL'd.Is this the basic import of this story?

Qualifier: I work for a company that has dealings with Novell. However, I'm near the bottom, so it's not like Novell going completely under would kill me or anything. My company could eventually migrate away from SuSe Linux without "too" much pain.Now, that being said, let me get to the point (and please don't mod this as flame bait because I'm just trying to give my honest opinion.

I'm excited about this Novell/M$ deal. I'm excited about it because it will allow IT departments to give their end users the

Instead, Microsoft has used this patent pledge to indicate that, in their view, the only good Free Software developer is an isolated, uncompensated, unimportant Free Software developer.

This from the man who believes [omnipotent.net] that the GPL is the only FOSS license with the right to exist.

Mr. Kuhn, you are every bit as much a part of the problem as Microsoft are themselves. In fact, you are moreso. At least Microsoft do not try and pretend to be anything other than what they are. You are not one micron less a fascist...merely from a different direction.

You can take your warped, cultic distortion of the word "freedom," and cram it where you feel most appropriate. You and Richard Stallman are open source's answer to David Miscavige and L. Ron. Hubbard, respectively. You are the proverbial scorpion on Linux's back.

Some who use Linux with the total inability to think for themselves may delude themselves that they need to use your brain and Stallman's in leiu of their own. I am not among such people, and I defy, reject, and repudiate both you, Stallman, and the entirely *false* freedom which the FSF stands for. You would have us reject Microsoft as our masters, only to install yourselves in their place.

You do not speak for everyone who uses open source. You most certainly do not speak for me.

Very well said. Regarding the quote you provided:"Instead, Microsoft has used this patent pledge to indicate that, in their view, the only good Free Software developer is an isolated, uncompensated, unimportant Free Software developer."

I would add that Microsoft has indicated nothing of the sort. The patent pledge is something Microsoft has offered out of their own business interests/strategies and says nothing of the value they place on any developer. Instead, the statement was offered merely to further

Indeed. An even greater irony is the fact that, as I commented on here [slashdot.org], there is evidence to suggest that Stallman no longer believes that programmers should be able to make a living programming at all. So what Bradley Kuhn is really doing here is projecting.

No. US Patent Law does not make any such distinction or exception for private home use. You can be infringing if you mass produce 100 billion copies to sell, or if you just "practice" the art in the privacy of you own home. Granted, the likelihood of any bad consequences for infringing (or even anyone finding out you're infringing) are not at all equal.But I think this commonly held misconception might be one reason why the general public sees nothing wrong with patents...they think it only applies if yo